I saw very few boats and ships off the coast of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, on the 3 trips I took this summer, when I slept for 10 - 20 minutes at a time in the cockpit or on the foredeck at night if I could.

What's really sad is the pitiful number of other sailboats out there. I saw 3 on my first trip and none on my second trip, not counting in the immediate vicinity of the Cape May inlet. At 28', my boat was clearly much smaller than the 3 other sailboats I saw - 1 of which I passed going in the Ocean City inlet as it left. Where is everyone? (This true for the Chesapeake, too, once you get away from the Northern Bay and the large marine towns/cities like Baltimore, Annapolis, or Solomon's Island, you really don't see that many other vessels out there, even in the summer).

I saw a dozen large luxury powerboats and sport fishing boats at different times, running up and down the coast, but none at night, and none very close.

I saw only 2 or 3 commercial vessels, and only 1 I needed to avoid, converging near the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay in the early morning hours.

I am sure it is much worse near large cities like New York, but I really didn't see that much vessel traffic on my coastal trips. So the reality is, you can go hours without seeing any other boats, even on a coastal trip. In fact, it was a somewhat unnerving experience for me to be far away from shore, and to not see anything other than the sea and the sky for hours at a time.